Burgers etc + Valley Bakery

I think I just had the best burger today. wow, was it every yummy. Since it's wednesday, it's time for my weekly suburb dineout and we decided to go to Burgers etc. Apparently it's voted as the best burger joint by CTV viewers. I have *never* seen this place in my life! I think it's because everytime I pass by, I am entranced into looking at Sfinaki closeby or that gym or Valley Bakery.. or Turkish Donair or Heavenly Bites. Burgers etc need a bigger sign. but I am so glad I found it.

Inside, there's no one (I don't blame them since I was eating at 2-3 on hump day) and it was a very clean place for a small burger/bbq place. We sat by the window and ordered two things to share.. a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and a potato salad side, and a BBQ rib+beef brisket meal with fries and coleslaw. Ok I know, best burger- why the hell am I not ordering a burger? I don't know, I am not a fan of burgers.. they don't appeal to me, unless it was different.. but ..

I would like to think of this pulled pork sandwich as a burger since they used hamburger buns. (I see sandwiches as using bread :p). It was a pain to eat (one of the reasons why I dont like burgers) but wow was it ever delicious!! I don't think I ever really say anything is beyond good (I think the last thing I said that was was the gyro from Sfinaki nearby.. damn that was soo good too). The pulled pork were moist and slathered in the bbq sauce. It was really saucy, tasty, juicy, delicious, everything. The coleslaw really balanced it out to give it some crispiness. and also- I never describe any of my meals into this such detail- so it WAS really THAT good!!

The ribs were pretty good too- they weren't super dry so I could use my fork and knife to cut the meat off and eat it. They had a very good taste. However, we didn't like the beef brisket.. eck. and oh the sides weren't very good.. the fries were normal, but the coleslaw and potato salad we could have done without.

They had a couple of customers, and at the end it cost us about 28 dollars. mmm I really want to eat that pulled pork sandwich again. Even though I don't like hamburgers, this is one I m willing to eat again!!!

Then we walked across the street because I am really intrigued by this turkish donair shop. but we were sooo full I couldn't muster up eating here.. but we did get a petit four and a hazelnut chocolate torte thing from Valley Bakery next door. The pastries here are super cheap! I mean, the things we got were a little over a dollar.. and the pies were only 5 dollars ish each! The petit four was really gross- too sugary, but the hazelnut torte was good- the moussey chocolatey center was soft and light and yummy.
(I am in my gray nail polish phase haha)
So, today's meal cost less than 20 dollars each. and it was dang good- ya!

Soho Bar and Grill

After taking the wrong turn and ending up on Lougheed highway, we began looking for a closeby spot to eat. We opted for Soho Bar and Grill on Bainbridge. I've been to the soho on Denman (formerly pacific crab company :( I loved that place the bartender was so nice.. we went visiting him and to our surprise it became stupid soho but he was around for a week so he gave us some free drinks (: )
We went inside and there was one other table. The hostess doesn't greet us, instead it's someone else, I don't know who, who was here to see the manager or something that tells us to grab a spot anywhere. We sit down and 5 min after, we get the menu. We ordered an order of nachos for 8.75 and wings.

The place is pretty big, they have lots of tvs and couches.. usual bar places. The food comes and it was okay. The wings were pretty good- we had the sweet chili salt and pepper I think.. and it wasn't too spicy or too salty. it was good. The nachos were good cept the salsa was kinda disgusting

Normal, adequate, okay food for a bar. at least I didn't get sick from the wings like I did from the shadow. blah

oh we also went to Rocky mountain chocolate factory in lougheed and got this tiger butter chocolate cup for 4.25. It looks like a peanut butter cup but a little bigger and crazy inflated price! Tiger butter is just chocolate with peanut butter. The thing was really really hard.. I
was expecting a peanut butter cup =(

*not eating out til sunday.. too much workkk

Socrates+Pappagallo

It's nearing the end stretch for me in school.. everything is falling into place rather smoothly, except for one more big big paper I have. Me and my roomie were chilling in our living room, talking about summer exchange to europe and beautiful paris and how she wants to go to Spain and I want to go to Ukraine... when all of a sudden this loud awful beeping came on. It was the fucking fire alarm.
After taking 10 minutes of torturous ringing because concindentally it was time for me to enroll in classes, we left and decided to go somewhere close for a quick bite.

I've always wanted to go to Pappagallo Cafe.. home of the supposed ultimate cheesecake. Inside, there was one other table.. the cheesecakes were displayed prominently.. there were blueberry, strawberry, pb chocolate, cappuchino, etc... The fruit ones looked kind of weird but the chocolate cheesecakes sure looked yummy. We got the Turtles one to go for 3.75. I must say it was pretty cheap! The ones at Trees Cafe is around 7-9 bucks? Too expensive! but nice manager owner man :)

The cheesecake itself was very creamy and the crust wasn't very hard. I prefer hard cheesecakes so I wasn't too fond of the creaminess. You can definitely taste the cream cheese though. I didn't like the crust either, I felt like it overpowered the whole thing. But for 3.75, I won't be complaining too much.

We then crossed the street over to Socrates for an early dinner (we do mean early- 4:00. stupid daylight savings is messing my dinner time up! hah). I've been here one time before for my friend's surprise birthday dinner. I don't remember much from it except they ran out of glasses and stuff from the overload of people..

It was really dark inside, as they were preparing for some birthday dinner coming up. We were situated by the window, and the waitress quickly comes over. She seems to really despise her job.. She was basically a robot with her response to us, and it was just really awful. Like she would say Thank you, very good choice, quick and easy choices, I am fine thank you for asking.. stuff like that in the most monotone boring i-hate-my-life voice ever! Her attitude got me depressed! I personally find waitressing to be a lot of fun- communicating with customers etc.. I mean sometimes you get real jerks or some days is just off, but I don't ever SHOW it

Anyways, we ordered the roast lamb and lamb souvlaki. It took AGES to get out. We sat there staring out the window, beginning to contemplate that maybe Hong Sushi across the street might have been a better choice to eat at..

The food comes, and it was ok. We both thought the lamb was too fatty and not lean enough. Everything else was edible.. and standard greek food.

I guess it's a good thing both our dishes cost lest than 11 bucks. We couldn't help it and had to go over to Hong Sushi after to look at their menu, and dang do their sushi rolls look good for their cheap price. I might have to come one day! (sure as hell not go to Tataya sushi a block away.. all you can eat sushi for 10.95, but it's really sketchy and gross..)

Little Billy's Steakhouse

Me and my two best friends haven't gone out and dined in such a long time. We used to go downtown so much but it's been a chaotic month with school and midterms/assignments/papers. Tonight we had plans on going to Sfinaki on Hastings but they were abruptly demolished when the bus stopped from a pretty brutal looking car crash. Being a nice civilian, the bus driver got out and began helping and told all of us to take the next bus that was coming within minutes. Being such a good samaratan, he should at least moved the bus maybe to an off road. The roads there are already filled with lots of traffic, with the added crash and the long bus, they were even more conjested. My friends were dying of hunger and were eyeing socrates/little billy's that was a block down. I didn't want to go to socrates again because I had been once, so I agreed on little billy's

Inside, it is very small yet very cozy. Everyone seems to know each other and they seemed pretty booked. Nonetheless they gave us a table and we ordered a few dishes. We shared a lamb chops while my vegetarian friend had the mac and cheese. I don't like mac and cheese but apparently it was very good. The lamb chops were pretty yummy, so was the rice. The bread was not and neither were the potatoes (too lemony) the vegetables seemed really old too.

The manager seemed very outgoing and apparently went to every table and asked them about their dinners, cept ours. We were pretty pissed. Just because we are 3 teenage/young adult girls doesn't mean we are not supposed to be here. A little "how was dinner tonight?" would be fine. We were paying and honestly he was just standing there behind us and it got a little awkward too.

Whatever, the place is super close to us and we had a satisfying meal tonight.

Asian Food

Last week, I went to Ken's Chinese Restaurant, which is across from Dai Tung. The place is freaking bright as hell and the menu is very very extensive.. with some questionable food. The place had a really asian feel to it, so noodles/rice/asian fare food is the norm. But then there were chicken wings, lamb chops, spaghetti, western fare... I started feeling sketch. Ok, I know that westerinzed food is common at HK cafes, but this one had a REALLY asian feel to it! Nonetheless, I ordered a western combo because I didn't feel like asian. We also ordered half a chicken and beef noodles.

Everything was ok. Even the lamb chops were good. I am still weary though. I don't know why?? Maybe it's because I just saw Kitchen Nightmares yesterday and I read a blog post about worst things found in food (crawling cockroaches? omg) so I am a little uneased.. but like my father says, what you don't know can't hurt you.
The next day I went to get my haircut so I was around Metrotown/BCIT area. We went to No 1 Beef noodle house. It was jam packed with people but the food was quite bland/adequate.

Tonight I met up with a old friend that I hadn't seen in a year (finally got himself out of the valley). We went to Black Tuna and I have to say, it was a huge let down. The place was super empty and it looked really drab as well. The menu was quite unimaginative and the food was bland. The unagi was grilled nicely but the rice was too hard. We also had the chicken karaage that tasted super off and the skin was really weird.. like it was fried for too long. We should have went to Yoshi.

Metrotown

I went shopping today and decided to venture on Kingsway for a bit.
We went to green basil first and shared a sweet and sour chicken with pineapple dish with rice, salad, spring roll, and soup for 6.95.
umm. It Seems like a good deal but I don't really think it was. It seemed like chinese fast food (sweet and sour pork?) from Manchuwok. It was fast, because I am sure everything was pre made already in the back. Probably works like manchuwok too. With pre made, and then scoop it with rice and soup and spring roll. So don't be decieved that this place is a 'restaurant" so 6.95 seems cheap and good! you can get the same dish and maybe more at Manchuwok!!

Then we went to Isami Sushi, the menu is so small... was definitely not impressed by the menu. We shared a spider roll that was really mushy inside. My friend said it was the rice, but I thought it was the crab. I don't kno. One thing's for sure though. 3.00 drinks? holy shit! If this place was on Granville or even just downtown, I'd be there predrinking every time.
Lastly we went to Abdul's BBQ for a shawarma. It is HUGE for 7 dollars! Lots of lamb and etc.. and apparently much much better than the ones at SFU. It was too spicy for me though.. and it was mild!

side note: i am addicted to nail polish right now.. that's navy blue but I am hoping to try light green soon :)

Last Week

So I had two major midterms last week and didn't really do much except eat cereal and pineapple. haha. After my 2nd midterm, we went to Tomoya near Metrotown. It was really crowded so we sat at the bar.. The place had bad ventilation so it was really stuffy and greasy smelling from the open kitchen. We ordered chicken karaage, gyozas, pink lady rolls, and croquette. Karaage tasted exactly like popcorn chicken, gyoza was normal, croquette was ok. and the pink lady rolls were pretty good. We were so stuffed we couldn't even finish anything, and it was pretty cheap too! The service was really nice. I mean, I am used to asian servers not being courteous but more efficient. It's how we do it, we don't make small talk we just get you food. Thus I can see why some people think service sucked. But when we left, they apologized for being slow and then asked if we came a lot balhblhablhabla. haha tat was kinda nice.

Afterwards, we met up with another friend and went to jules bistro for dessert. We had chocolate cake and panna cotta and fries. The fries were nice, panna cotta was yummy. Chocolate cake- meh. I don't really like choco cake though. Also had baileys on the rocks. i think that's my new fave dessert drink, it tasted like milk.


Today I planned on going to The Fish House for Afternoon Tea. However we got absolutely lost in Stanley Park. FUCK. There's no goddamn maps sometimes and it gets so fucking confusing. Last time we went to second beach and it took us forever, there must be a shortcut but we don't know how. We asked info or shuttle bus woman but they fucking confused us more!
We got so fed up when we got to Second beach 15 min late for reservations already so we just went to Denman to Maria's Taverna. We shared an appy plate which I shouldn't have because I KNEW i don't like that filo pastry with spinach and the green wrapped rice thing. but I wanted hummus bread and kalamari. I didn't even eat a lot, I should have stuck with lamb souvlaki. Anyways, the waiter was really nice and tried to start convo with us. We looked rough/hell when we first walked in after stumbling in stanley park for 1 hour. I was tired from the night before from barnone (dark and crappy) and my friend was hungover from atl. We were fucking starving. Anyways, he was where are you guys from? omg did we look like tourists?? kinda embarssing when i said the valley hah. then he's like did you guys go shopping even though we clearly had no bags. we must have looked pretty rough hahaha. I might come back for better greek food, because he was really nice

We then went to true confections for guava cheesecake which tasted like plain cheesecake with strawberry coulis. wtf. and the service was crap.. really bad.

Then we went to the Stars concert. I really liked the guest which was Curtis Santiago.. He was great!

Friday Dining

I really did try to stay for my whole lecture today but it was just impossible. it didn't help that there was a continuous flow of people dispersing from the classroom silently every 5 minutes. Hence we were early for our reservation at the Hart House. Nonetheless, I was too hungry to sit around aimlessly for half an hour (I only had a banana). aka repeat of Hamilton St Grill and PlanB waiting around on benches.
The place was nice but inside was kind of eerie. I think it was the old house thing .. anyways, they gave us the wrong menu.. I had my heart set on eggs benny but settled for quiche instead. The food took awhile. When it came, my quiche was stone cold. I 've never had quiches before so I made up excuses thinking maybe it's a cold quiche. But it was like ICE COLD. so I sent it back, he was really nice about it. The bad thing about me is I don't like sending food back unless I HAVE to. I am always scared something will happen. Anyways, it came back and it was hot. but there was a hair in my food. gah. We had to go do marketing experiment so I didn't want to send food back AGAIN. I just ate the fries. My friend had the risotto and had no complaints.
After the experiment, we went downtown to Ganache Patisserie. I've heard about this place but I've never walked past it before. I had a vague memory of the address so we decided on some aimless walking and hopefully luck out and hit it. We did :) The place is really cute with affordable cakes. We ordered the Guava mousse and passion et chocolat. They were really good at first bites, but then they got a little too sweet for me.
Next, I wanted to try out Tequila Kitchen because I still had my mexican craving going on.. but we passed Urban Thai bistro and decided to give them one more try since we had a coupon as well. (went there for dessert once). We ordered the Pad thai and Peanut Sauce Chicken. They were both way too heavy on Sauce. This was my first time eating pad thai so I had no comparisons but my friend said it wasn't very authentic.. To me, it tasted like I was eating spaghetti because of the noodles and the sauce tasted like it. The chicken was COVERED with peanut sauce. It's not a good thing. The flavor was so overpowering I had to drink water every time I took a bite (and I am not a huge water drinker at restaurants). We ate a couple bites and then packed it to go. needless to say, this was not worth it and I won't be back.
Should have gone to Tequila Kitchen or even Sala Thai... hum.

Anducci's

Hungry and needing to buy groceries, we ventured to Lougheed to Anducci's. I wasn't SUPER hungry but I was craving pasta. So we ordered the 3 pasta plate. It consisted of spaghetti and meatballs (my fave), fusilli with shrimp and fusilli with chicken. it was supposed to be linguine but we were in a hurry to get back to our class, so we didn't say anything.. I prefer long pasta over short though so we finished the spaghetti and barely touched the other two.. Instead we gave it to a homeless. Afterwards, I went and got groceries which proved to be a bad idea because my roommate went and got bananas, soup, and peach yogurt for me. Which I got myself, so now we have like 10 bananas. hahaa.. oi, i m gonna be a monkey for the rest of the week. I WOULD make banana bread or cupcakes (banana and coconut? banana and oat muffins?) but we have no electric mixers and etc.. gah

Horizons

We chose Horizons on Burnaby Mountain Park because we didn't feel like going too far. It's about 10 min walk? The complimentary bread wasn't very good. I had the rainbow trout and my friend had the Cioppino's dish. the trout was ok. Nothing fancy schmancy but I got my omega-3s :) The menu seems kinda outdated?? i dno, i just remember seeing a lot of the same menu items from the last time I came here, which was a year ago..
For Dessert, we shared the apple rhubarb cobbler. It was o-k. Nothing special. I can't believe it was 8 dollars. So not worth it.
I don't think I'll be coming back again. I am not a fan of horizons much. nor am I a fan of the walk to here. We have to walk in a forest to get here.. and my number fear is gnats/flies (don't ask). The next time I need a quick dinner, I might choose Bombay Behl or Pear Tree

oh Burnaby Mountain..

We went to Horizons in Burnaby for dinner. It was probably my first time eating a 3 course meal at a fancy restaurant in BC.. my fam usually goes to chinese places, never places like Horizons.
As beautiful as the picture looks, it was not very good :( The desserts on the other hand was goooodd